Vivien Zhang CN, b. 1990

Vivien Zhang (b 1990, Beijing) is a London-based artist and grew up in China, Kenya and Thailand. Zhang is named on the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list, and is the recipient of the Abbey Award 2016-17 at the British School at Rome and the Chadwell Award 2014-15. She received her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art (London) after completing her undergraduate at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (London).

Vivien Zhang's work reflects disjunctions one experiences as a third-culture citizen and also as a digital native. Zhang's paintings present a cultural and geographical fluidity that interrogates the palimpsest nature of contemporary culture, the casual appropriation of visual tropes, and the role of post-production in making works of art today. Zhang collates motifs and manifest them in various combinations in her paintings. Examples of these motifs include "manicules" found in early European manuscripts, the mathematical shape Gömböc, and 20th Century map projections.

Vivien Zhang's recent solo exhibitions include Codescape, Long March Space (Beijing); Uzumaki, House of Egorn (Berlin); Digital Natives: Vivien Zhang and Thomas van Linge, The RYDER (London); Vivien Zhang (curated by Sarah McCrory), Monteverdi (Castiglioncello del Trinoro); South of Meaning: Travis Jeppesen and Vivien Zhang (accompanied interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist), House of Egorn (Berlin); Cavity Drift, Galerie Huit (Hong Kong). Recent group presentations include All As Long Distance Neighbours, Soyuz (Pescara); Trembling Surfaces, Long March Space (Beijing); Beyond Borders, Blain|Southern (London); December Mostra, British School at Rome (Rome).